APRIL 



with my nose in the air taking it in. It 

 lasted for two days. I imagined it came 

 from the willows of a distant swamp, whose 

 catkins were affording the bees their first 

 pollen ; or did it come from much farther, 

 from beyond the horizon, the accumulated 

 breath of innumerable farms and budding 

 forests ? The main characteristic of these 

 April odors is their uncloying freshness. 

 They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, 

 they are penetrating and lyrical. I know 

 well the odors of May and June, of the 

 world of meadows and orchards bursting into 

 bloom, but they are not so ineffable and 

 immaterial and so stimulating to the sense 

 as the incense of April. 



The season of which I speak does not 

 correspond with the April of the almanac 

 in all sections of our vast geography. It an- 

 swers to March in Virginia and Maryland, 

 while in parts of New York and New Eng- 

 land it laps well over into May. It begins 

 when the partridge drums, when the hyla 

 pipes, when the shad start up the rivers, 

 when the grass greens in the spring runs, 

 and it ends when the leaves are unfolding 

 and the last snowflake dissolves in mid-air. 

 It may be the first of May before the first 

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